artist's rendition: sciencedaily
New research conducted by the Cedars Sinai center has revealed that one of the predictor for obesity is the presence of a certain kind of intestinal bacteria that was found by analyzing the breath of patients.
Those subjects who had high concentrations of both Hydrogen and Methane gas in their breath were more likely to have higher body mass index, or BMI, and therefore a higher percentage of body fat.
The study analyzed 792 people. Four groups emerged after testing: normal breath content, high concentration of methane, high concentration of hydrogen, and those who had both high concentration of methan and hydrogen. The last group was also the group that had the highest percentage of body fat.
The presence of methane, and its concentration in the breath is associated with a microorganism called Methanobrevibacter smithii. Almost all methane is produced by this bacterium.
The overabundance of the Methanobrevibacter s., which indicates an imbalance in the intestinal flora, is an indicator for overproduction of methane. This imbalance is also believed to be responsible for weight gain.
The bacterium forages on hydrogen produced by other flora present in the gut, and then produces methane as byproduct of digestion. This in turn allows hydrogen producing bacteria to work efficiently and thereby extract more nutrients from the gut as the food passes through. This in the end, results in weight gain.
In other words, the imbalance causes the person to assimilate more calories due to the overefficiency in nutrient absorption by the bacteria.
A new study is underway to see how this process might influence the onset of diabetes in patients. The study aims to understand how efficiently people digest food before and after eliminating the offending bacteria with antibiotics. The patients who will participate must have high methane concentrations to qualify for the study.
Source: Science daily 3.26.13
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